Virtual energy storage: Using buildings as batteries

Editor's Note: To learn more about new energy technologies be sure to check out [email protected] November 12-13. Thomas Edison once remarked “When we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orangutans.” True to Edison’s insights, recent investment in battery banks, compressed air systems and ultra-capacitors show interest in solutions that improve energy storage technologies. Utilities and the venture capital (VC) community are spending vast sums in search of solutions to curb peak power loads and to address the intermittency of renewable power sources. Edison would likely view these expensive investments in hard storage technologies as noble but misguided efforts to transcend our collective simian roots. Better solutions within our grasp The rush to invest in new capital-intensive storage technologies overlooks a larg...